Old Fashioned Heat Relief

I often hear of photographers, writers and artists hitting a “dry spell”, a cross-discipline “writer’s block” if you will. Perhaps you shoot the same kinds of portraits a lot or get caught up in the other aspects of life that keep a camera out of your hands. In photography, at least, half the hurdle is just picking up the camera in the first place.

On a very hot (by Maine standards) June day, I was reminded just how important it is to have a camera handy. Maine typically gets four 90-degree-plus days per year. Some years bake us with as many as 10 scorchers and others as few as none (e.g., in 2014 in Portland failed to break 90); but four is a reasonable average and one of the reasons so many people flock to our rocky shores between Memorial and Labor Day.

This year is looking like it will give the record a run for it’s money. We had a freakish 95 degree day in May then three-in-a-row in June. Getting home from school, my son helped me stretch a bunch of hoses out to reach our garden and then promptly decided he needed to get cool and wet.

I hesitated grabbing my Nikon: it was 95 degrees, I’d have to run into the house, yada… yada: doing my best rationalizing. But I remembered seeing some fantastic photos of kids and water and thought “let’s try this!”. So I grabbed my sports camera, the one with the best auto-focus, and my 70-200 zoom and gave it a go.

The thing about my youngest here is that he truly relishes being a kid. He doesn’t want to grow up too fast, he wants play time, plain and simple, and he’ll make that happen just about anywhere.

And he did have a ball and the shots are enigmatic of the simple pleasures of a sprinkler on a hot summer’s day.